When They Awoke
by Xenutia
Summary: This is the story of the night the podsters awoke in the desert in 1989...and after.
1. One

when_they_awoke_1 

**When They Awoke****  
by Xenutia  
**

  
**Disclaimer:** Congratulations to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims and the people at Fox who've come up with something so good I'm sick with envy.  
**Summary:** Just what it looks like. This is an account of that night in 1989 when Max, Isabel and Michael woke from the pods, and the way they grew into the young adults we know and love. This is a story that has haunted me and emotionally imprinted itself upon me as the series told it, and I've done the rest. Hope you like it.   
**Rating:** G  
**Authors Note:** I don't know if I've got all the information right, and there's still bits we've not been told at all - where was Michael for the three years between 1989 and 1991, exactly? When did Tess awake, and why was she so much later than the others? - but I've taken notes and done my best. This is a story I felt deserved to be told in its entirety, a story far too strong to be referred to only in conversations between the characters. I first wrote this between S1 and S2, and of course much of what we know has been elaborated on since then. So for anyone that read this on Crashdown the first time around, I've re-written it a bit since then to accommodate what happened in S2. So here we go.   
  


*******  


  
If Diane is to remember one thing about that night, it is that every star in the heavens is shining down upon the cold desert like a hundred thousand fireflies and the full moon is watching this small, lonely planet like God's eye. The silence impresses upon her its enormity and power - the desert beckons the unwary to its chill embrace. It is a night of dreams and a night of horrors; something in this emptiness reminds her of a bad suspense movie, maybe The Howling - she almost says this to her husband but something decides her against it.   
  
The darkness this far from the comforting sprawl of lights nestling over the distant town is something real enough to touch - the headlights cut through this silky black like a yellow blade, penetrating the desert's blackness for only a few milky, weakening feet. Mica gleams in the alkali dust blowing gently across the road. They have driven miles and those twin beams have illuminated nothing but this endless dusty road stretching on towards the horizon, towards home - but now they fall on two new silhouettes in the dark.   
  
Diane does not believe what she is seeing. Not at first. Philip nearly hits them in his shock, the two tiny figures standing side by side in the road, their hands linked in a child's way of comfort; two small children, a boy and a girl. Both silent and unmoving as the Jeep slows and its tyres slowly crunch to a halt. Both naked as the day they were born.  
  
Diane expects them to run away as she opens the passenger door. She expects them to run and hide, and expects noise of some kind - she does not know what, but something - she does not expect and is not prepared for this. For them to stand, their thin, pale arms around each other, their frail, bone-white bodies trembling gently in the chill silence, not a sound escaping their lips as Diane approaches, and drops to her knees, her eyes level with theirs. Twin pairs of huge, dark eyes glimmer in the headlights, watchful as owls, blank and frightened as trapped mice. They are shivering with cold. She would assume them brother and sister, if only from the way they hold each other and the unspoken trust implicit in their movements and their body language, but they look so different; though they share those big dark eyes, the boy is dark as dark can be, wild black hair and skin tinted olive beneath his pastiness. The girl is porcelain-fine, her hair smooth and golden, her skin like milk. Diane is speaking to them but they do not respond; those blank, watchful eyes follow her where she moves, they watch her lips as she speaks with fascination...but they do not appear to hear her, or understand her. She wonders if they perhaps do not understand English, or if they are perhaps deaf. She snaps her fingers, and when their skittish eyes dart to her hand she is satisfied they hear her. And now, for the first time, she has time to wonder how they came to be here.  
  
Philip has fetched their coats from the Jeep, and he proceeds to wrap the boy in his own, the girl in Diane's. They neither acknowledge nor run from him. Diane does not believe them to be any older than six years old, physically at least, but they are painfully thin for their age. Both are dirty from desert-dust and she notices blisters on their feet. How long have they been walking, alone, cold, in the dark? Who could have left these two, tiny children out here alone? They are so helpless, so young, so frightened. And so beautiful. Their eyes seem to swallow her whole.   
  
She holds out her hands, encouraging them to her. Philip has taken a step back, allowing her to earn their trust, and she hears him wandering away from the road, calling out into the dark, listening for a reply that does not come. The girl looks hard at Diane's hand, as if she understands, or is close to it...then, gradually, the pretty little girl extends her own hand, so small and fine and white, and takes Diane's first two fingers in her tiny fist.  
  
The boy is holding back. Fear dances in his huge liquid eyes like the stars in the brilliant sky; he is uncertain, terrified, but the girl's example has affected him. Flinching, he reaches out...and takes Diane's other hand in his own.  
  
She leads them slowly to the Jeep, afraid they will bolt, afraid they will run away and be lost once more in this cruel desert, and once again, the girl appears to be no longer afraid, climbing into the back seat of the Jeep with speechless concentration. The boy balks at this huge monster, so much bigger than he is, making light from its front and sound from its innards, and he stumbles back from it, his hands pawing at his face like that could somehow make it go away, and for a moment Diane thinks he will scream - but he only makes a small, exquisitely pathetic mewing sound in his throat, like a frightened kitten. She knows now that he has never seen a car before - she does not realise, however, that he has never seen light before. She fears very much in that second that he will bolt, his terror is that extreme. So she goes to him softly and places her hands on his thin shoulders, easing him to her, and the monster that has frightened him so badly. It breaks her heart to scare this poor child so much, to force him to climb in with his sister when he is so afraid, but she must. She cannot let him run from them. Into that darkness.  
  
She feels more easy when the doors are shut, and Philip has locked them and driven on. She wonders again how they came to be here, alone in the dark expanse of desert, motherless, fatherless. Had they been abandoned? Survived an accident, and wandered up to the road in a daze? Nothing would explain why they were naked beneath those coats, why they understood none of her words or smiles, why they did not speak, why they acted as if everything were new to them. Amnesia this complete was hard to believe. And what kind of person could leave these small, helpless children out here alone? They are so perfect, so small. She keeps coming back to that. They are so impossibly small.  
  
The girl is intent upon them, watching the subtle movements Philip makes as he drives. The lights winking on the dashboard intrigue her. When Diane turns, the girl meets her eyes without fear. She does not smile, but Diane senses that she wants to - that she will, in time.  
  
As they drive, Diane tries not to think about what may come next. She is already dreading the next day, the things which will need to be done when the night is over; she dreads most having to turn them over to parents who may only abandon them again. Or worse; finding that these children had survived some terrible accident while their family had not. They were, after all, displaying all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   
  
But naked? What kind of accident could possibly account for that? She tries not to consider the implications of it, the reasons why these traumatised children may be lost this way...but with so many sick freaks in the world, who knew..?  
  
She cannot take her eyes off them as the Jeep swallows the miles into town. She tries not to stare, but she cannot help it. The thought is an uncomfortable one, only adds credence to her unpleasant theory, but these are easily the most beautiful children she has ever seen. As she looks the girl is absorbed, busily investigating Diane's coat pockets. The boy is near catatonic, staring out into the night. He is unmoving but there is a bright, bird-like intelligence in the deep pools of his huge dark eyes. He is looking for something. She sees his grim concentration and wonders, sadly, if he will ever find what he is looking for. She doubts it very much.   
  
The journey is long and Diane fumbles in the bag at her feet for the thermos of tea she has carried with her all day, pouring a little into the plastic cup. It has been sitting all day and is not too hot for their tender young mouths. Diane has identified the delightfully abrupt little girl with the gap in her front teeth as her best shot, and hands her the yellow cup carefully. Attracted by the bright colour, she accepts it, sniffs it, eyes Diane warily over the scuffed rim; then she drinks, a tentative sip that quickly becomes a thirsty slurp. The boy refuses the cup when his companion offers it, but the little girl presses it against his hand, nods, encouraging him. Diane watches the silent communication between them speechlessly, a little awed by the intensity of their empathic connection. Despite their dramatically different colourings, Diane concludes they must be brother and sister. She would even guess twins. The depth of their pantomime is simply too strong.   
  
The girl impatiently nudges again, her lips pressed together in an expression Diane will one day come to know as her daughter's exasperated look; a look most often directed at the boy Diane will one day call her son. The boy responds now as he always will; he surrenders to the unnegotiable force of her, and takes the cup in his small, trembling fingers, and drinks. Diane does not let them see, but she is pleased. Pleased they are willing to trust her. Philip drives and the lights of the town draw near under a blanket of stars far brighter than they will ever be. Diane does not understand the significance of it, or why she should remember; but Aries is strong over Roswell that night. The five brilliant stars in their imperfect 'V' are like a flock of celestial geese in the night sky.  
  
The children are sleepy as the Jeep turns into the driveway, the tyres crunching faintly on the blacktop. Their heads have lulled together and their eyelids look as though tiny weights have been hung from them. The girl yawns pointedly, and her cartoon-like exaggeration makes Diane smile. She has never seen children this well-behaved before, has often viewed her friends' children with quiet despair of ever having her own, but she feels differently, looking at these two. Not quite maternal, not yet; but she is hopelessly charmed by them, no doubt.   
  
They follow her and her silent, watchful husband into the house, and though their eyes fill with terror at the bright lights and strange surroundings she no longer fears they will run. The little girl's bright curiosity, peering into this corner and that, is enough to convince her. Philip wants to call the Sheriff now, and report this bizarre affair; Diane calmly persuades him to wait until the children have had some sleep, and time to settle. Nothing, she says, will have changed in the morning; not realising, as she speaks, how wrong she is.  
  
They feed the children slices of apple and cookies, bring them warm milk and dress them in t-shirts four times their size. Whatever fear these two may have displayed is all but gone, their disorientation settled; but still their reactions to the house are baffling. It would be easy to believe, watching them, that they had never seen a house before.  
  
She puts them to bed in one of the spare rooms, and is troubled by their lack of understanding as she tucks them in. She will check on them, frequently, as the night wears on. She is startled by her protectiveness over them, at the stir of feelings she has never suspected of herself, and the idea of facing the coming day, of giving them up, is an evil taste in her mouth. But she is afraid to face the idea already forming in the back of her mind, certain Philip will never agree. That he will not understand.  
  
She convinces her husband to get some sleep, before it is fully light, and he goes, reluctantly. She knows she will not sleep even if she tries. Her head is reeling from the sudden swell of plans forming there, unreal plans, ridiculous...yet she is serious about them, all the same.  
  
She creeps into the spare room in the hour before dawn, eased by the sounds of sleep from within. Their steady breathing, breaking the silence. She stands in the doorway, watching them, seeing instantly that the girl is asleep, tousled blonde hair tangled on the pillow around her head, her little body rising and falling deeply. And at first she thinks they are both asleep; but then she sees the boy stir, and his eyes open and stare straight into hers. He does not respond when she offers the forlorn child a smile. He will never fully learn to smile. And now, terrifyingly silent in the darkness, he is crying. His eyes are huge in his wan little face, like lamps in the dark. His tears trace twin lines down his frail, dirt-streaked cheeks. She feels for both of these waifs but in this moment she is overcome with a wave of love especially for this boy with no name. A sense of maternity she has never felt before. The devastation in this speechless, uncomprehending child, in eyes so wide and black they draw her in, is like ice in her heart. She stoops down, level with his questioning gaze, and reaches out to stroke his hair, gently. She is both stunned and pleased when he lets her. By the time the sun begins to creep in the window, he, too, is asleep.   
  
Philip wakes and comes in as she is stepping back; now that she is sure the children are asleep, the asks her husband the question that she has been afraid to ask. He kisses her, and tells her they will try.  
  
  
The moment she has feared is as painful as she has thought it would be, and more. The Sheriff, notified in the early morning, has contacted the proper authorities. The children are being taken away. They have not been reported missing; nobody knows who they are. Still, they have no names, and Diane thinks this is perhaps the most exquisitely sad thing of all.   
  
The people from Westlake orphanage are nice enough, at least today, and are grateful to the Evans' for their thoughtful care of the children overnight. Diane does not tell them that she wishes and intends for it to be longer, not now; things are confused enough, without the complicated legal requirements of adoption being dragged through the mud at the same time. Knowing it is terribly selfish of her, and feeling helplessly wicked for even thinking it, Diane hopes their parents are not found. That she will have the opportunity she so desperately wants.  
  
The children scream as they are taken outside, and the little girl she has secretly decided to name Isabel kicks and struggles like a cat before they bundle her into the car and shut the door on her. The little boy she still has no name for slips away from the woman holding him by the hand and ducks back to where Diane and Philip are watching, standing helplessly on the front path. Diane can feel her heart break as he comes back to her. He does not take her hand, as she expects him to do, but only stands in front of her, oddly calm in the midst of his sister's screaming from the car behind. His eyes meet Diane's, for just a moment, and she can swear - swear - that he understands what is happening. That they will be coming back, one day.  
  
As the car pulls away down the road, she can see two small, pleading faces looking back at her through the glass.  
  


*******  


  
It has been days since Philip Evans called with a strange report of two lost children out in the desert, and Sheriff Valenti can't dismiss the undeniable connection - he has never been a man that believes in coincidences. The rancher has no idea what is going through the Sheriff's head as he watches the small boy that has been brought in, that ideas are already beginning to form in his curious mind's eye. The boy was found wandering on this fellow's ranch, naked, dirty, unable to speak or to understand a word spoken to him. But this one is not like the two found days ago; he is not submissive and silent and innocent as they were. The rancher's hands are scratched and there is the clear evidence of a bite on his hand, a small, perfect ring of indentations whiting the skin around tiny dots of blood. This boy did not come quietly, was only wild and unresponsive, and had to be taken by force to prevent him from injuring himself. Beyond that, doing what he has referred to as his 'public duty', this rancher wants nothing more to do with him. The Sheriff has called Westlake orphanage, but has been informed that they are full - he will have to be transferred if no evidence of family can be found. The Sheriff, a father himself and not too hardened by his job to empathise with such cases, finds it a pity - he is convinced of the connection between these three, and that they would be happy if they were housed together. As he regards the dirty, scowling little boy wrapped indifferently in a travel rug, he realises that he is perhaps the same age as his own son. It brings home the poignancy of the situation anew.   
  
The rancher, having given his statement in monosyllabic words that reflected little or no interest in what was to come next, focused only on the facts of the incident, has left the station, and the Sheriff is left alone to watch over the boy until the welfare people arrive. It is an unpleasant part of his job, these occasions when children are involved, it always has been - but this is the most extreme case he has heard of in his whole career as a lawman. Not one or two but three small children, apparently abandoned outside town, in bizarre conditions, dumb and nameless. They are a complete mystery.   
  
The boy is watching him with wary, untamed eyes, clear feral brown like a lion, and Sheriff Valenti attempts to smile, to set him at ease. He has tried giving the kid coke from the vending machine in the corridor, but all the boy gave as a response was a violent, spluttering cough as the bubbles got up his nose, and, with a low growl, threw the plastic cup across the room. There is a testimonial cola stain dripping down one white plastered wall, pooling on the floor beneath.   
  
Valenti has left him to himself, after that. The boy continues to scowl fiercely for a few minutes more; then, little by little, he quiets, and the scowl lifts a little, and the low rumble in his throat like a rabid dog subsides. Valenti is surprised at the awful sadness in the boy's face, now that the aggression has left him. He hopes the welfare people can find this boy's family, or a family that can offer him a chance to grow out of his defences. He really does.  
  


*******  


  
His breath quickens as he reaches the place. He is close now. The culmination of half a century, years of waiting, learning, searching...years lost in the cause of his people, years lost to war. If he had a heart like the humans he had lived among all this time, it would be pounding now. The effect of his respiration, the rise and fall of his lungs, is only illusionary, has grown from his time pretending to be one of them...he has no reason to breathe this way, exhausted, anticipating, anxious; but it is a habit hard to leave behind.   
  
The mountain stands out against the twilight sky, stark and cold, a black knife-blade cutting the horizon in two; every nerve in his body is tingling as he feels their presence. He can feel them, close by. It will not be long now.  
  
The climb would tire a human but Nesado, as he was once named, is unhindered by such trivial emotions and needs. He reaches the place where he can enter. The rock responds to his touch with a faint crackle of energy, like electricity, and he is in.   
  
He sees instantly that something is badly wrong. It is too dark in this cave, too dark by far. Four incubation pods, each giving off their own halo of light, should have lit this place far more than he is seeing now. Nesado is incapable of fear but the anticipation he has been sensing as he travelled here by night has given way to a creeping dread and sense of foreboding. He does not understand these humans' need to pray in times of trouble, or he would be praying now. Praying none of his charges have died by some horrible accident, that the pods arrived on earth undamaged. He walks further in, following what dim glow of light there is, until he sees, clearly, what has happened.  
  
Only one pod remains lit. It is pulsing faintly, the membrane around it shimmering at the movement from inside. The warm, womb-like swell of sound from it is comforting, but muted, alone in the cave, one where four should be. The other three, he sees with some relief, have not ceased their functions through the deaths of the children inside; the children are gone. He does not know which of them has remained, which have been lost, and although a human would no doubt experience feelings of guilt for the thoughts Nesado now has, he does not. He sees the importance in all of these children but he has always been prepared, should it ever come to it, to sacrifice the three for the sake of the King. And although he should feel ashamed to think this way he hopes, more than he has hoped for anything in a long time, that it is the King who has remained behind. He stands and stares in mute concentration for a time, absorbing the scene, the three which have gone. The pods have hatched and stand dark and silent, empty husks like discarded egg shells.  
  
Nesado approaches the one pod still holding its cargo, and peers through the quivering fleshy gestation fluid at the small face sleeping inside. Blonde curls float around her face. It is hard to believe, seeing her now, that she was once their queen. She looks like nothing more than a doll in human form in there. Then the King is gone. The King, his sister, his second-in-command, all gone.  
  
He rests his open palm on the hand print glowing on the dark wall beside her. The pod shudders, once, like a crashing train; inside, the fluid bubbles and churns. It looks as though it is boiling, colours and shapes darting in the roil like pebbles in a fast-moving stream, dragged under by the current, surfacing in brief flashes. The skin of the pod breaks, and a tiny hand reaches through, feeling its way around the hole it has made, widening it in gradual degrees. Matted, gluey blonde hair bursts through, followed by a head, neck, body. She tumbles through the torn membrane and onto the floor at his feet.  
  
Nesado helps her to her feet, traces the fluid from her face with his fingers so that she can see. She is shivering with the sudden transition; from the warmth of her pod, her womb, to the cold, chill night. Her tiny hands wrap instinctively around her arms, hugging herself, her flesh mottled by goose bumps. It is with some pleasure that Nesado sees the bewilderment in her face as she looks frantically about her, searching for something, and the obvious panic and pain in it as she sees nothing but walls and silence and him.   
  
She is looking because she has been programmed to look. It is her role in life. It is what she was made for. And even now, so young, she is conscious of her need.   
  
You're looking for him, Nesado purrs, taking the little girl's arm in his hand. Good. That's good.  
  
He leads her from the cave and into the cold black expanse outside, into her first waking night, assured that things are as they should be, after all.  
  
  



	2. Two

when_they_awoke_2 

When They Awoke  
by Xenutia  
  


**Disclaimer:** Congratulations to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims and the people at Fox who've come up with something so good I'm sick with envy.  
**Summary:** Just what it looks like. This is an account of that night in 1989 when Max, Isabel and Michael woke from the pods, and the way they grew into the young adults we know and love. This is a story that has haunted me and emotionally imprinted itself upon me as the series told it, and I've done the rest. Hope you like it.  
**Rating:** PG  
**Authors Note:** I don't know if I've got all the information right, and there's still bits we've not been told at all - where was Michael for the three years between 1989 and 1991, exactly? When did Tess awake, and why was she so much later than the others? - but I've taken notes and done my best. I originally wrote this between Season 1 and Season 2, but we've learnt some things since then which needed to be included - so this is a re-write. So here we go.   
  


***** 2 *****  


  
The day that the papers come through spell a new era in Diane's life. Philip's too, of course; but she feels a special connection to the events of the last few weeks because all of them have come from her one, urgent idea; that she would not give these children up. They have visited them when they could, and if she had considered their condition sad on that first wakeful night then she has since re-evaluated that notion. In the orphanage, amongst other children, children that chattered and played and yelled and ran, these two only appear that much more tragic. Alien, even. She had once seen a single black lamb huddled protectively against its mother in a field full of white sheep, whilst on holiday in England, and these two look just like that. As sad, as lost, as aware of their distance from these other children as that lamb was of its own distance from the others. On the first visit, she had been told at the door it would be better if she just went home; the children had been unresponsive and often sullen, refusing to leave the dormitories they had been placed in. The boy, she is told, did not even leave his bed for two days, although the little girl showed vague signs of participation after a while, and had been known on occasion to nod at somebody she recognised. But on this day, her first visit since the welfare people took them away, the two are huddled by the window in the upstairs hallway, engaged in their own terrifyingly silent communication, looks and nods and gestures which leave Diane helpless to their meaning. The girl, as she watches them, reaches out and touches the boy's arm, gentle as children rarely are, and he turns his sad eyes on her, as if he finally understands what she has been trying to tell him. Still he does not return his sister's smile. Diane is no longer worried or cautious about thinking of them that way, as brother and sister; even if, by some miracle, they are not related by blood in any way, they will be related by name for the rest of their lives. They will be Evanses. She has never been more sure of anything in her life.  
  
It is the girl that notices her first on that primary visit, and nudges the boy to look, too. The girl's beaming smile is unmistakable. It is enough, all over again, to confirm to Diane that she is doing the right thing.   
  
But that had been weeks ago, and now Diane is returning to the orphanage, not as a visitor, or a concerned citizen, but as their mother. She has repeated the word to herself as she changed to go to the orphanage, and is surprised to find she likes the sound of it. Philip has never been one to show emotion, not outwardly at least, and it has been her own privilege to claim almost sole possession of these kids, but Philip's diligence these past few weeks has made her love him even more, just the same. The spare bedrooms have been completely redecorated, all by his own hand, and toys and games have begun to appear stacked in the closets of both. Even though they will be too young for them for quite some time, two brand new bikes are leaning to in the garage, waiting for them to grow up, waiting for the teenagers these two will become. It is his way, she knows; his way of showing his support for her, for them, for his new responsibilities. She has had uncomfortable moments, mostly at night when he is asleep beside her and she lies awake excited and flushed, that maybe he would have preferred his own children, blood of his blood, she might say...but if that is the case, it has not deterred him.  
  
She is unsure of what she should wear, what would create the proper impression to the people that run the orphanage, but not scare the children away from her. Then she remembers that first night, the girl's bright interest in a simple plastic cup, and she remembers why - it had been brightly coloured, bold, plain. Just the sort of thing children were attracted to. She wears a yellow sweater which could blind anyone with sensitive eyes, a yellow not disimilar to the colour of that plastic cup, and feels she has made the right choice. Years later, her daughter will tell her that on that day, she looked like the sun. Because of her yellow sweater.  
  
The weeks in the orphanage have worked some kind of magic on them, if only slight; they still do not run and play as the others do, but the little girl - Isabel, as she is now named - is seen laughing when a ball bounces past her and one of the other children runs to fetch it, or when the orphanage cat comes to her and rubs itself against her legs. Diane is shown into the garden where they are sitting side-by-side on the step, watching a hotch-potch baseball game between the other children, and she does not immediately announce her presence to them. She watches, seeing the changes in them, seeing something she never would have believed, a while ago, of them.  
  
The ball bounces past her daughter once more - her daughter, the words still have no meaning - and Isabel laughs in delight once more. It is a laugh she will see often in years to come, bright and charming and extraordinarily beautiful. And this time, instead of joining the moment of fun and shifting aside as the child who missed the catch fetches the ball, her little girl gets up, runs after it, and retrieves it. She hands it to the shame-faced little boy playing left field with a winning, happy smile, and returns to her place beside her silent, watchful brother, as if what she had just done was no great thing. No milestone in her life. But Diane sees it, and knows, unequivocally, that that is exactly what it is.  
  


*******  


  
The sudden blinding playfulness in her new daughter is pleasing to see, wonderful - her innocence has suffered none for her new happiness. She laughs, she smiles, she nods and shakes her head and tugs up a loose piece of leather from the Jeep's back seat as merrily as if she were doing her parents a great service, and Diane laughs with her, and finds herself chattering to her as if she had known her forever. But her happiness in finally having them with her where they belong is dulled, horribly, by her son's almost desperate silence. He is grim on the ride home, his tiny brow creased with perplexity and worry, his sulky mouth set tight against whatever deep thoughts may be his, inside where no-one can see.  
  
That night she is too excited, worried, elated, to sleep, and she wanders around the house long after she has tucked the children in and Philip is heard snoring softly through the crack under their bedroom door. She makes soup and sits in her dressing-gown, appreciating the silence, knowing that for many years to come silence will be rare, with Isabel tearing round the house. And in that peace, she can imagine the time to come; teaching them to talk and read, taking them for their first day at school, seeing them make friends and eventually dating - maybe having to see them leave for college, when the time comes, when they don't need her so much anymore. But that is years away, and at night, in the quiet, years seems like forever. She can't imagine ever being without them again.   
  
She gets up as time flows past into morning, that dead zone when most have gone to sleep and few have woken, and walks idly past the doors of her children's bedrooms. Pressing her ear against her daughter's door, she hears the muted snuffling of a small pair of lungs steadily inhaling and exhaling, deep in sleep, content. Satisfied, Diane walks on to her son's door, and again presses her ear to the wood to listen for the sounds of sleep to assure her he is well. For a confused and weighty moment, the air pregnant with dread at his silence, she hears nothing; then, a sound. Faint, stifled, numb. Inside, very soft in the dark hours, there is the wretched sounds of a child's sobs. She rests her hand on the door handle, hesitant to intrude, overcome with grief for those pathetic little sniffles, so very self-comforting and suppressed, wanting to go inside and cuddle him and stop those tears. She doesn't know if she will be enough for this tragic child; but she remembers the first night, stroking his hair until he slept, how passive he was with her, and wavers again. She is almost turning the handle when the sounds stop, abruptly, as if he had bitten on his pillow to quell them, and she decides not to go in. Not to risk waking him, if he has finally fallen asleep. She leaves, uncertain if she should, and doesn't hear the muffled little gasps start up again moments later.  
  
It is days later when she sees the toy house in the gift shop at the mall, sitting in the display case in the window when only a week ago, she could have sworn, it hadn't been there - like it had been put out to view, just for her, because it is so perfect. Toy houses are perhaps something associated with little girls, but this one is different - it is black, and rambles like a haunted house from a fairytale. It looks so very like a magic house, crooked and twisting and detailed. And that is what she will say to him, when she presents it to him later. That it is a magic house, and will protect him, and take him home. Or, if all goes as she hopes, make him accept this as his home. Accept her, and Philip, and the home they were trying so hard to make.  
  
She waits until Isabel and Philip are asleep, and listens outside his door once more. Sure enough, she hears him crying, like she had known, far back, that she would. She wonders guiltily if he has cried this way every night since she first heard him, if he has been scared and alone this way night after night, and she wasn't there. Foolishly she had accepted that abrupt end to _be_ an end - that he had merely been overtired and nervous and unacclimatised that first night in his own bed, and would have settled by only the next day. In her hand she holds the precious toy house, carefully wrapped in silver paper, hesitant once more about disturbing his misery. But those helpless sobs are breaking her heart, just standing here, listening. This time, she goes in. He does not even notice her.  
  
The bundle under the bedclothes is quivering, heaving as he breathes uncomfortably hard between his tears. Diane goes over without another thought and pulls him gently from the bed, and hugs him to her, feeling the gooseflesh along his arms and the way he trembles against her, like a rabbit caught in a snare. He sees the parcel in her hand before she thinks to give it to him, his bright child's eye curious and questioning, his face a pale mask in the moonlight coming through his window, and she hands it over, pleased he is so interested. For a long time he appears more captivated with the wrapping than whatever may be inside, and this strikes her as almost comically typical, watching him fastidiously peel away the scotch tape in neat little lines instead of tearing it open like any other child might. He is special, there is no doubt in her mind about that.   
  
At last the toy house is unwrapped and he sits inspecting it, turning it this way and that, his drying tears forgotten on his smudged face as he finds new interest in each little part of the model. Diane does as she intended, and tells him it is a magic house, but already, she knows it has done the trick, and that he will not cry anymore.   
  


*******  


  
It troubles Diane that still they do not speak. Her daughter will nod, smile, gesture emphatically to make herself understood, and Diane does not worry too much about her - she is sure it will only be a matter of time. Her son is the worry. He is silent not only in words but in actions, too. He has never smiled, never laughed, never given any indication of a reaction to what is going on around him. It is unnatural for any six-year-old boy to be so serious and calm, and despite doctor's assurances she has doubts as to his speech - her once idle fear that he may be mute has burrowed down into her everyday thoughts, into her growing love for him as he becomes a part of her life, and she wonders, at first distractedly and then with increasing urgency, what she will do if this turns out to be the case. She knows she would never love him any the less for it, even if he never learned to call her Mom or ask a stupid, childish question, but she fears for him if it comes to that; she knows how cruel other children and even adults can be about such things. She worries that he has no social skills, no desire to mix with people his own age but his sister, she worries there is something seriously wrong.  
  
Perhaps that, on its own, would never have concerned her; but aside from his complete introversy, he has an uncanny thirst for knowledge. In only weeks he learns to read, and although he never repeats the words he learns to her or says them aloud, she knows he understands what the shapes on the paper mean, and she finds him reading every child's book Philip had bought for them, absorbed in the stories, cutting through them at a remarkable and often frightening pace. She buys him more books, older books, and he reads those, too. Then, one morning shortly after his seventh birthday, she comes down to the kitchen to find him quietly reading his father's morning paper. She knows children often pretend to read what their parents read, to be like them, to imitate them, and that in itself would be remarkable; but what happens next puts aside any such thought she might otherwise have had.  
  
As she comes into the kitchen, yawning in spite of herself, he quite calmly looks up from the paper, blinks once like a baby owl, and says: "It's going to rain today."  
  


*******  


  
In the year to follow two incidents alert Diane once more to just how special her children are, and leave her wondering, long after it should have been dead and buried, just where they came from, and what had happened to them to leave them out in the desert that night in 1989.  
  


*******  


  
The trip to Florida comes first; it is a high summer that year, and the weeks stretch on with no visible end in sight. It seems logical, now that they have two small children to cater for, to holiday somewhere where beaches and child activities are a strong feature, and Florida seems to be one big beach in every travel brochure she picks up that spring. Were it not for one striking event, she would let that holiday sail away into the haze that was another summer gone by, another year, another day, another dollar.  
  
It is their third day on the beach, and it is hotter than the second day, and the second day had been hotter than the first. She has brought a book to read while she tans and Philip is planning to join the volleyball game - something she hasn't seen him do in years, since college. It is amazing the effect being a father has had on him. The children have bright new buckets and spades - Isabel's are yellow, of course, as even her high school computer will be yellow when she is old enough - and they are busy digging a hole which will no doubt wind up burying one of them before they get to lunch. It is interesting to see how well Max plays with his sister, when all he does around other children is close himself off.   
  
Diane is dozing, lulled by the heat and the glare on the white sand, when she notices the event. It is perhaps assuming of her to suspect there is any significance to it - another mother proudly searching for signs of specialness in her children - but whatever it is that strikes her as odd, something does. Something about their still silent communication, although both speak quite well now, is strange.   
  
They have set aside their buckets and spades, and neither has been buried in the sand by the other - she has her suspicions that Isabel will never allow herself to be buried whilst Max will probably do anything to please his sister - and as she watches, startled even now by how beautiful they are, she is drawn by the pattern their fingers are drawing in the sand. It is unfamiliar, odd, slightly ethnic in its appearance - two swirls, surrounding a dot. Both could never have seen anything like this yet both know exactly what it should look like - both draw as if possessed of some invisible power. She debates whether or not to tell Philip what she has seen - but the children forget it as soon as it is done and she never sees anything like it from them again, and the matter is dropped. The holiday ends abruptly, with Isabel sick from sunstroke all of august and Max laid up with a sprained ankle, and her maternal concerns, as always, take over from her deeper thoughts.  
  


*******  


  
The second incident cannot be explained so easily, and is never forgotten. This one happens, not just in Philip's presence as well as her own, but in front of a video camera, as well. They are in the park, on a warm fall day when the sun shines sideways on the world, heavy and full, bleeding long shadows across the leafy ground. The children, once more happiest in each other's company, are playing in the leaves, chasing pigeons along the grass to see them lurch awkwardly in their attempts to take off. Diane tolerates this activity, seeing that as bad as it may look they aren't hurting the birds at all - they never hurt even an insect. She had seen Max, especially, step around ants in the road, with a conscious care on his face that she has never seen in a child before, the way she never saw a child unwrap a gift so thoughtfully before. Philip has handed her the live camera and wandered away to buy hotdogs from the stand by the swings, leaving her to watch their antics and laugh when the pigeons hop and flap away.  
  
Isabel sees it first - one of the birds does not flutter the way the others do, only stays half-buried in a drift of leaves, its wings staggering blindly against its body. Its wing on her side is broken, Diane can see that. She is on the verge of calling Philip, to ask him if perhaps they could take the pigeon to the vet, when Max approaches the bird, treading carefully so as not to scare it anymore, and his hands close gently around its trembling, plump body. Diane has never seen her son do anything to hurt another living thing but at this moment she has her doubts - why else would a child pick up an injured bird when his mother was there to ask for help? But the bird is still in his protective hands, seemingly unafraid, and she marvels at the sight of it - that the bird senses it doesn't have to be afraid with him.  
  
Trapped behind the camera, her hands tied by it, Diane tells him to put it down, and he only looks at her, benign in a way a child should never look, patient but exasperated with her as she raises her tone a little, and tells him again. He only blinks in his owlish way, turns from her, and releases the bird into the air.  
  
Diane's hands tremble uncontrollably as she watches the bird, wings strong as they beat the air, fly away, completely healed.  



	3. Three

when_they_awoke_3 

When They Awoke  
by Xenutia  
  


**Disclaimer:** Congratulations to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims and the people at Fox who've come up with something so good I'm sick with envy.  
**Summary:** Just what it looks like. This is an account of that night in 1989 when Max, Isabel and Michael woke from the pods, and the way they grew into the young adults we know and love. This is a story that has haunted me and emotionally imprinted itself upon me as the series told it, and I've done the rest. Hope you like it.  
**Rating:** PG  
**Authors Note:** I don't know if I've got all the information right, and there's still bits we've not been told at all - where was Michael for the three years between 1989 and 1991, exactly? When did Tess awake, and why was she so much later than the others? - but I've taken notes and done my best. I originally wrote this between Season 1 and Season 2, but we've learnt some things since then which needed to be included - so this is a re-write. So here we go.   
  


***** 3 *****  


  
In the three years since, Sheriff Valenti has not really thought again about the boy that was brought in that day. Even the cola-stain, which the cleaner had quite adamantly enforced would never completely go, had faded. He has had his own worries, a failing marriage and his own son, to think about. Kyle has grown to a strong and handsome boy, with an uncanny talent for all sports, and although he has shown no interest in accepting the badge as both Valenti and his father before him had done, he is fiercely proud.   
  
He is working late again tonight - in a way he supposed it was his late nights that had contributed, in some way, to Michelle's departure - and it is a busy night. A call has come in from the trailer park just outside of town, a concerned neighbour reporting yells and the sounds of furniture being thrown in one of the trailers. Sheriff Valenti knows the culprit, although on the previous two occasions he was off-duty and had only heard the second-hand reports from his deputies the following day. Tonight, Jim has the pleasure of visiting the scene first-hand, and in his official capacity.  
  
The trailer park is a sorry state of affairs, even by the standards he sometimes encounters on these calls. Of the twenty or so trailers, only one appears fit for human occupation, a fairly new holiday-camper parked on the farthest outskirts of the lot, away from the squalid conditions of the main camp. The camp itself is littered with overflowing trash-cans, evidence of these people's lack of any kind of organisation or house pride, and three mangy dogs are scrapping in the gravel nearby. The trailer from which the commotion had come is perhaps the worst of the whole dishevelled lot, and the flashing beacons of the police cruisers cut deadly angles and shadows in red and blue across the face of the vehicle. A small crowd has gathered in the dirt road and are being held back by his deputies, idle spectators whose lack of involvement with the disturbance would in no way impede their ability to pretend, after the event, that they were in the thick of it. Gossip in such cases was a sad business, but it was also a consistently unavoidable one.  
  
Valenti is the last on the scene, tonight, having arrived from a traffic violation uptown, and the trailer and its occupants have already been secured. Every one of the lawmen on duty know Hank; his drunken bouts have often caused such scenes in town, and his record has grown, over the last three years or so, from an acorn to an oak. Valenti sees the man in police restraints, cuffed to prevent him from attacking any of the officers on duty, but one of his deputies, a man named Hoskins, is studying one dirty corner of the trashed trailer. Hoskins' broad body obscures Valenti's view of it for a moment; then the deputy steps back, shrugging apologetically to his superior officer, and Valenti understands that this case has been passed over to him. Just what the case is he does not yet have any idea.  
  
It is the boy, of course. He has grown, by almost a clear foot, in those three years, and his jaw has set and his shoulders broadened; but the Sheriff recognises those feral, quick eyes, sadness beneath the aggression that he wears like a mask, and he recognises that posture, too, that protective huddle, from long ago. The boy, whom he later learns has been named Michael since they last met, is taken outside cautiously to make a statement. But Jim Valenti would not be the Sheriff he was if he needed a statement to tell him what had been going on here tonight. Bruises spoke more than words.  
  


*******  


  
She knows from her very first day that her life is not her own. She is told that, every day of her life, by the strange man that isn't a man at all. He changes his face sometimes, and at first it scares her so badly she can't help but scream...but it is something she grows used to, before she can even speak.  
  
She is given a name, any name, because names on this world aren't important. She is called Tess because it was the first name he saw, on a magazine cover in a shop window, because it is far removed from her _real _name. It serves to disguise her existence from her enemies, until the time is right. She wonders about this strange non-man, if he has a name, and he impatiently lets her call him Nesado - why, she doesn't know. For him, it is as good a name as any. Nesado is what she calls him when they are alone...but secretly, she will always think of him as Dad. When they have company, she is allowed to call him that, as if he were her father, because it is what he wants people to think he is. Names come to hold a weird power and mystery for her, even as a child. And she wonders what _his_ name is, and if she will ever find out, long before it is first instilled in her young mind just why she dreams of him. Why she dreams first of a boy and then of a man she doesn't know. And why she never sees his face.   
  
The dreams at the earliest stages mean nothing to her. She has no model for love, for companionship, for the desire to be with others. Nesado teaches her to neglect her emotions, and it is what she does, in the day, so well she forgets she ever felt at all...but in the night, when she dreams, she feels whole again. She feels love and safety within the boundaries of a place that never was, with a boy she can only feel, but never see. She feels warmth from him, and from others, from her family...her real family. She lives for the nights when she can sleep and be loved. But there her confusion begins - she is told, in her waking hours, that these three are not like her, though they were made together - that they are her enemies, that the love she feels is false. That they are evil. She does not understand how evil could feel so warm.  
  
Nesado provides for her, and well - she wants for nothing. He is never angry with her or hard on her the way the parents she sees in the streets are. He never shouts, or denies her the things she wants, materially. But the one thing she wants, his time and love, she can never have. He is a guardian and she is what she is - not a girl, not a child, not even a human. She learns to use powers she never dreamed of, powers she soon learns to guard jealously, before she can even read. She knows that none of the children she knows can do the things she can, and she almost begins to imagine, as she grows older, that these can replace the family life she so desperately wanted as a little girl.  
  
Her dreams become her refuge, stronger as she matures, more urgent as they move from town to town, searching for these people she feels she knows, but has never met. One day she is shown a book, strange shiny metal bound in rings, and inside there is an engraving. She recognises herself, and assumes that the two she sees above, the boy with the spiky hair and the girl with the feline eyes and long, blonde hair are the two she always sensed, in the background; her family. The boy pictured beside her is what she will most remember, most treasure. It is the first she has ever seen of the one she dreams of, and she wonders how accurate it is, if this is really what he looks like...if he is as handsome as he seems, carved into metal in the pages of a book not of this world. After that, though she still sees nothing, she dreams of a face based upon that image, she imagines when she wakes that she really sees him, and it becomes more a part of her secret heart than before. With these dreams, her knowledge, her destiny, comes power; when they find these three, when she is with them again, they will be at her mercy. She can fulfill the life mapped out for her by this distant individual...or be with them as she has always wanted to be. Be loved. She will finally be able to decide if they are as evil as they are made out to be...and when she decides, she will be granting them life - or taking it.  
  
Nesado knows of the dreams, and it has occurred to her to wonder if maybe this alien being was the one causing them...but he rarely speaks to her about them, rarely indicates he knows anything at all. When she is old enough, she is told a little...that she is destined for this faceless man, as the two she saw above them are destined for each other. She begins to guess at names that would suit them, the faces she saw in that book, the only glimpse she has ever had, her first proof that she will not always be alone. And she begins to guess at their personalities, a little; something in the images speak to her, tell her that the spiky-haired boy is as sharp and as ungiving as his hair, that the girl is graceful and feminine as that beautiful face promises, and that her future husband is as strong as his square jaw and gentle as his peaceful eyes. She tries not to think of the impression her own image gives, because she does not like what she sees.  
  
The time comes when she is a young woman, and Nesado announces that it is time to move on again. They leave Alabama and the friends she has made, but this time, the move and the loss is not painful; she knows she will be with him, soon. They are finally going to find her family. Her dreams on the road are more desperate and more heated than any she can remember.  
  


*******  


  
He has forgotten, by now, just how many nights he's spent like this - hiding in the cubby-hole of a room he sleeps in, lying in the dark, hating the blackness, but afraid to turn a light on in case it should wake the man that dares call himself his foster-father. Tonight, as he lies uneasily in his camp-bed, sweating heavily in the dark heat of summer in this cramped and unventilated trailer, Michael is nursing a sprained wrist. He has had worse, had bruises under his clothes that not even Max and Isabel knew anything of, bruises which had been best hidden by making himself disappear until they faded. It looks as though he may be doing so for a few days, this time; until his wrist is healed and he can show himself in public again. He has tried, before, to heal the marks himself, knowing that Hank will not even remembering having done it in the morning, and will not miss them. Sometimes, he is lucky; the bruise is not so bad or he's having a good day, and it works. Other days, no matter how much he may want to, his power remains unfocused, and fails. Tonight is one of those nights, and he can only bind the swollen wrist up in scraps of an old t-shirt, and lie still, waiting for the the crashing sounds in the main trailer to start up again, waiting for Hank to wake up. He may still escape tonight with no worse than this sprain, if Hank sleeps off the alcohol in his system before morning. Michael will be sure to make himself scarce long before he wakes, will disappear up to the lake for the day, where no-one, not even Max and Izzy, will find him. If Hank will only stay asleep.   
  
The night passes, endless and cloying and airless, and he lies, hot and thirsty in his bed, unable to breathe, too afraid to go out for air or a drink in case he should do the unthinkable, and wake Hank. He watches the square of grey in his wall, the night sky showing only the faintest starlight, moonless and quiet, and waits for the thin pale light of dawn to begin to creep over his window-pane.  
  
At dawn, holding his breath and nursing his awkward wrist against his chest, he slips out of bed, and unlatches his door, creeping like a cat-burglar trespassing on private property. A single lamp has been left on in the trailer, forgotten by them both in the heat of their arguments, and it flares brightly against his weary, unaccustomed eyes. After spending the night staring into the dark, the light hurts. Hank is asleep across the counter that serves as their kitchen, slumped forward, his greasy head and unshaven face resting in his stocky arms. He is snoring gutturally, like a blocked drain. Michael knows better than to stick around, knows the importance of being gone when the sun comes up; but this time, perhaps fascinated by how short and weak this ugly little man looks as he sleeps, he stays, watching silently. It is hard to believe that he should be afraid of this pathetic little man; he's nothing special, he's no prize fighter, no mastermind. But Michael is still a child, in many ways, and much as he bucks against authority, much as he pretends to be unafraid, he is afraid. Hank is an animal, and living here is like some kind of hell invented by bored sadists, but it is all he knows. He fears that, if he fights back, Hank will wash his hands of him, and he will be sent on. Maybe someplace worse.   
  
Or maybe - and this, perhaps, is what he is most afraid of - he would be sent someplace better.   
  
And he knows he would never be able to cope with that.  
  


*******  


  
The first day of school is something which has been long spoken of, but in that vague form never managed to hold much of either horror or anticipation in it. Now it is the day, and Max is scared to go. He has always been scared of people, even of his neighbours and his mother's friends when they visit. Even when they buy he and Isabel candy and comment on them to his mother's delight, he stays out of the way, hides behind his mother or behind the cushions or sometimes in his room. He is as nervous of other children as he is of adults.  
  
Isabel is happy to finally be going. The other children she knows and plays with have been in school for years already, and it has been no secret on her part that she is jealous of them for that. She is conscientious the night before the term begins, carefully laying out her new outfit on the dresser and counting through her new books and pencils and packing them away in the crisp new satchel. She thinks her brother is weird to be so afraid. But Isabel has never acknowledged, the way he has already begun to, even at nine years old, just how different from other kids they really are.  
  
His only source of any hope for the first day of school is a slim one, and perhaps it is strange he even remembers the way he does - he has never stopped thinking about the boy in the desert. The boy who stood on that rock, so high above them, announcing his presence for the first time. The boy who refused to go with them to the road that night, and was never seen again. Max has a tiny, foolish hope, a hope he has not shared even with Isabel, that he may find his lost brother there today. If a brother he even was.  
  
Their mom sees them to the bus stop, and helps them climb the big yellow school bus, full of other children cheering and calling and throwing things. Isabel is in heaven, among these other children - at this age Max has no concept of hell, but it is close to the way he feels.  
  
There are even more of these children he doesn't know when the bus finally pulls up into the open front lot of the school, more noise, more yells and screams and things being thrown. Almost as soon as the bus has stopped Isabel is down the steps, and racing off into the playground, finding her friends, making others. Max waits quietly on the sidewalk, wanting to run home, wanting to curl up and hide the way he always hides when things seem too big and too grown-up for him, but there are too many people. His mom would only be mad if she found him back home, when he should be here, when she has insisted for some time now that like it or not he is going. So he stands clutching the new satchel in both hands, staring into the crowd, knowing that eventually Isabel will miss him and come back.  
  
Close by where he stands, perhaps visible because of how calm and orderly they are amongst the rabble, a group of little girls stand in a ring. They are playing rock-paper-scissors, shaking their fists viciously together at each new game. Two of them, a small blond girl with red patched sneakers and a wide smile, and a dark-haired little thing in a blue dress, hold hands as they play, and they turn their smiles on each other as time and again, they win the game. They seem to be as capable of speechless communication as he and Isabel are, when they wish to be.  
  
He is fascinated by them, and forgets to be afraid. He senses something. He has never told a soul of this power, a power he doesn't understand, any more than he understands the other extraordinary things he can do, but he has always been able to sense things. About people, about whether they are good or bad, about the 'them' within. He watches the girls, the two holding hands and giggling like old friends, and knows they are good. Kind, and sweet, and good.   
  
His eyes keep creeping back to the slim little girl with those huge brown eyes, like a puppy, and her long dark hair. He looks against every inclination he has. He looks because he is unable to stop, because it happens almost without his knowledge...because the things he senses from her are the most powerful he has ever felt, will ever feel. He looks, thinking she cannot see him, thinking he is as invisible as he feels...and she glances up, and, forgetting her friend, she meets his gaze.  
  
It is here that he sees Liz Parker for the first time.   
  
And now, she is all he sees.  
  


**The End.**


End file.
